They are not prefects, but are pleased for her!

He scrapes enough money together for the test of the wards on a few square meters outside the house. Voltaic piles work as desired. He spends the rest of the summer camped out there experimenting.

Miranda visits sometimes to help.

She might notice that Minor is vaguely chattier around her and spends more time staring at her.

"Do I have something on my face?"

"No."

She snorts and goes back to rearranging his magnetite and amber, erstwhile Christmas presents and now experimental tools.

He is so, so ecstatically happy. And very annoyed when term starts and he has to abandon it for Hogwarts, where none of his experiments will work.

"You're not excited about classes at all?"

"I feel like at this point I can make as much progress at home if I'm willing to frequently bother Michael and Timothy. I am looking forward to seeing my friends more, though."

"I missed you too."

" - but you should've seen what I was in the middle of collecting data on!"

"I bet you have notes!"

He has so so many notes! Indexed searchable notebooks full.

And Miranda has a funny story about how she now has lots of practice at the charms for healing electrocution.

"I didn't want to take it slower!"

"You could wear gloves!"

"I couldn't switch to gloves halfway through the experiment without compromising the scientific integrity of the results!"

"Remember when he got the eels and kept letting them zap him -"

"It was pretty memorable!"

"In a hundred years when electricity is really important you'll agree with me it was worth it!"

"I don't think it was necessary!"

"I guess I could've thought of gloves in advance." He sighs and shakes his head. "O.W.L.s year. Michael says school went by really fast for him but I'm not really seeing it."

"Yeah, it feels like a long time ago we were in first year - d'you think we'd be friends if I hadn't come into your compartment?"

"You and Karen would've probably still ended up friends, right?"

"I didn't even meet her on the train to begin with - I guess we could've met through her, yeah."

"There you go. And you'd've met Timothy and Michael."

"Well, yes, but I never wound up especial friends with Theodore over knowing his brothers..."

"I don't think you and Theodore are very compatible personalities. You care about some of the same things but - differently."

"Yeah, probably. If I had determinedly not been friends with you for a whole week Timothy'd've thrown me at you."

"Yeah."

Hug.

And they arrive at Hogwarts and file in and split off. 

Minor writes Timothy for advice.

Classes resume! The now-sixth-years Miranda convinced to adopt firsties grill the new sortees over the welcoming feast and each pick one - not the ones who need it most, unfortunately, but the idea is that it'll be enough of a tradition to cover everyone and it has to start somewhere, and none of these are outright Muggleborn anyway. An unchosen firstie girl wants to know what the deal is and Miranda explains it to her and she latches onto a fourth-year of her own accord, presumably hoping to be adopted by the follow-them-home strategy. Miranda doesn't adopt a new one, she already has Stoller.

Stoller is one of the people Cricket tolerates! She is allowed to pet him.

She's delighted to pet him. "The mentorship program's a good idea."

"I think so too! I'm hoping it spreads but I think it might be more useful for girl Slytherins than for any other sort of student."

"Why the girls in particular?"

"Well, there was Timothy, but on the whole I think boys are a little less - positive sum? About things? It wouldn't work badly for them if they did it but they'd have to actually do it and not take it as designated-picking-on-targets or anything - which girls might do but I think it's a bit less likely."

Nod. "I never met Timothy, was he like Michael?"

"Not very. Timothy does - networking. And very good presents. He got me Cricket. Cricket hates him."

"Mrerer."

" - why does Cricket hate him?"

"Objected to how he treats his cat. He's good to people though."

"Seems a bit more important. Does Cricket mind if you Transfigure kittens?"

"I have avoided having Cricket around while doing that so far!"

Giggle. 

"Have a good term, lemme know if you need anything."

And that afternoon finds Miranda in the library doing her Transfiguration essay.

Minor comes and finds her. "Hey! Next weekend there're people pitching in for a Portkey from Hogsmeade down to London. I haven't any shopping in London this early in term but it's supposed to be the best time of year to fly the Channel. Would you like to go with me? As a date?"

"I - um -"

"I really like you. Have for a while."

"I'mreallysorrybutIcan'tsorry -"

"Oh. Okay."

"I'm sorry."

He leaves.

An hour later finds him crying in the Ravenclaw common room.

"- what happened are you okay -"

"I asked Miranda out. She said no."

"...why would she do that -"

"Presumably because she does not want to go out with me."

"Right sorry I don't mean to rub it in just did she give a reason -"

"No. - you could ask her for me - in case it's something I could change -"

"Yeah - I'll - go do that -" She hugs him.

"Thanks."

"Mmhm -"

She runs off.

Miranda's pensively sitting in a corner of the library hugging Cricket.

"Hey can I talk to you alone?"

"Yeah, all right." She puts down her cat and picks up her bag. They go to an empty classroom.

"- so um, why did you turn Minor down -"

"It's - not a thing I talk about -"

"Can I, um, can I guess is that okay -"

"Okay."

"Um - I - am almost sixteen now and still don't - I - um this is hard to say jump in any time if I'm on the right track - I always sort of figured one of the two of us would wind up with Minor it's just obvious but, but I don't want him myself or anything, not really, it - boys smell wrong - I keep having dreams about the time I got out of the lake and - do you -"

"- oh, Karen, I -"

"- hm?"

"That's not it, I'm sorry, I hate today, I'm so sorry. - I still like you and everything it's okay you don't have to wish you never told me it's fine it's just that's not -"

"Oh."

"- do you want a hug -"

"Not, um, not right now thank you - what is it I told Minor I'd ask -"

"Nnenne's a Muggleborn and my father's a perfectly nice and alive and present in my life Muggle and Minor wasn't just - casually asking - and I don't know if - eventually it'd come up -"

"Okay. I love you. - I didn't say that. Okay. Um. I'll. Try to suss out Minor for you?"

"If - I - don't feel obliged -"

"I think he'd be all right really I will see about getting that done goodbye -" and she bolts.

Miranda cries on her cat.

Karen marches very carefully not crying back into the Ravenclaw common room and attempts to sneak past Minor to get to her room.

" - did she say -"

"I um. I. Excuse me." She abandons sneaking and runs.

That's weird.

Minor cries for a while.

He then avoids both Miranda and Karen for a while.

Karen goes to her room and draws the canopy and casts a privacy spell and bawls uncontrollably for four hours and tapers off and has a nap and wakes up and composes herself and goes and washes her face.

And then she goes looking for Minor.

No Minor to be found, he's gone for a walk.

Okay. She can wait until after their next class then tap him on the shoulder.

"Hi."

"Hello I'm sorry about yesterday that was. Something else. Um. - oh, hell, I'm no good at this. You get on all right with Rebecca, right -"

" - yeah, she's fine, wanted me to be really careful not to let Catherine electrocute herself -"

"Um, and - um. What about Miranda's sort of pet not a firstie any more she's fine right -"

"Stoller? I don't know her very well but -" hiccup - "Miranda likes her -"

"- yeah. Um." There's nobody around, she recasts the privacy charm just to be extra sure - "um, you know Stoller had trouble over being a Muggleborn -"

"Yes, Michael fought a duel over it."

"Miranda's not actually pureblood."

"Was she even pretending to be, I thought she was just refusing to comment and counting on it being horribly rude to say she wasn't."

"She was like, pretending without I guess in retrospect lying...? And I guess she thought you might care. But. Seems like you don't. So. You could tell her that."

"Is - is that why -"

"'s what she told me you should be all set."

"- are you okay -"

"Why would I not be okay I am fine."

"I don't know why you would not be okay but you don't seem super fine."

"I'm fine everything is fine."

"Did you, um, because everyone said you shouldn't ask one girl for help asking another girl out -"

"No you idiot I wanted Miranda -"

- she claps her hands over her mouth.

"Uh."

"I didn't say that."

He nods awkwardly.

And now she is trying not to cry.

Hug?

Okay.

"I, um, is acting like you didn't say anything actually the best thing I could do or just the - not worst -"

"I - I don't know -"

Hug.

And now she's crying on his shoulder.

That's okay.

"I w-wasn't ever going to say anything but I couldn't th-think why she wouldn't go out with you unless - so - but -"

" - she wasn't awful about it though, was she, she wouldn't have been -"

"No. No she wasn't at all she's lovely." Sniff. "Make her happy."

He nods fervently.

Eventually Karen gets ahold of herself and stops crying.

And he gives her a last hug and goes to find Miranda.

Kinda hiding in her common room.

Cricket is stalking the halls though.

"Hi, Cricket."

"Mrow."

"Should I give you a message to take her or would that not help."

"Moww."

"Uh, I can give you a message and you can convey it if you think it will be helpful? Karen said, and I really can't imagine caring."

Cricket bobs his head and traipses off to find some mysterious catly route into Slytherin.

A couple minutes later Miranda comes out.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"If you're secretly half dragon and half merperson and Transfigured into human form by a dark wizard who will release the curse if you ever go on a date with me then I guess your parentage would be relevant."

"Right, where could I possibly have got the idea that you care who people's grandparents are."

"I guess I would also care if you were my cousin."

"We're definitely not related."

"You don't say."

"I'm pretty sure. Unless your dragon ancestor is the same one as mine, then all bets are off - Antipodean Opaleye?"

"Ah, no, our secret dragon ancestor is a Hebridian Black, we're all right after all."

"So what'd Karen say, I haven't got Cricket spelling yet so he has limited vocabulary."

"She said you weren't a pureblood and thought I might care, and I said I hadn't even realized you were pretending to be. As opposed to just counting on it being rude to say you weren't."

"I don't like lying and nobody's backed me into enough of a corner or guessed close enough that I had to." Sigh. "Timothy probably guesses but hasn't said anything."

"Would he say anything, though?"

"No, but he also wouldn't say anything if he hadn't guessed."

"Anyway. I don't care. Michael married a Muggle and no one even cared very much."

"Michael isn't a pill to his cousins."

"I haven't done that since like second year!"

"They've all learned to stop trying to talk to you."

He does not think he has lost anything at all as a result. He doesn't say that. "I don't care who your parents are, Miranda."

"Then I will fly the Channel with you."

They fly the Channel that weekend. It's pretty. 

It is!

Miranda's pretty.

Yes.

"- the reason I'm never free Christmas or Boxing Day is I go see my dad then."

"What's he like?"

"He's great - he'd probably like to meet you and Karen now that you know, I tell him what I'm up to -"

"I'd like that a lot and I bet Karen would too."

"Do you think you can avoid being obvious to Timothy in case he doesn't already know -"

"Probably. Why are you worried about him knowing, you have way more to blackmail him with than vice versa even if he were horrible -"

"I don't think a blackmail contest would end well!"

"I just don't know what you're worried happens if Timothy guesses."

"I'm not specifically, it could just - only get out once."

"Well, I will endeavor to have lots of other plausible explanations for all my activities and emotional states."

"I'm really sorry I upset you."

"I'm really sorry you thought I would care about blood purity."

"I didn't have great information on that and I knew it I just wanted to be really conservative -"

Nod. "...I wrote my father less than a month into first year and I said you had good ideas on the charms experiments and were smart and came up with an Igbo alphabet and was that how one identified the person they were going to marry. And he said yes pretty much but I should, uh, wait and see if I wanted to kiss you, also."

"- a month?"

"You're pretty great!!"

Giggle.

They gather around to catch the Portkey home. Someone warns Miranda to be careful, Ways don't seem to marry respectably at all.

"I don't think you have a trend's worth of data."

" - Timothy's still not married, Michael ran off with a Muggle, Theodore dropped out of school altogether and shows no signs at all of courting anyone anyway, Fredrick's never so much as been on a date..."

"Timothy tried to get married, just he unlike Michael made the mistake of asking his father first," she points out, that being the official story. "I don't see what Theodore's education has to do with his marital respectability and neither he nor Fredrick is old enough to be remotely concerning. But thank you for your interest in my well-being."

The not-cousins shouldn't count but he heroically refrains from saying so. Back to Hogsmeade they all go.

Hogsmeade is a cozy little village, even if there's not all that much interesting there.

Yeah. The sun sets. They head back to school.

"That was nice, I'm glad I came."

"I'm glad you did too."

"Sorry I freaked out the first time you asked."

"It's okay. It'll make a good story someday in two hundred years when my father's reengineered the philosopher's stone and everything is great forever and no one can even imagine what it would have been like to care about blood purity."

Giggle. "That sounds fantastic."

Kiss?

Yes all right kiss.

Minor is utterly delighted when he returns to the Ravenclaw common room that evening but he tries not to be it in front of Karen much.

Karen has wound down to a sort of tired compersion and says she hopes they had fun.

"We did. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

He sits down and starts working on his homework.

Miranda discreetly stalks Fredrick, sometimes by cat proxy, till she can corner him alone and say, "A word?"

"What can I do for you?"

Wandwave. "Please don't try to figure out who I'm talking about, because the possibility that you won't is why I'm talking to you instead of waiting for a chance to ask Timothy, but, supposing I knew a girl like the two of you only a girl, would it be all right to tell her about him - or you, I suppose, but she'd probably suit him better and I only know the one - to get her permission to tell him about her - I can go over that rephrased if you like, I didn't realize how confusing it would sound till I said it out loud."

"So they can get married without drugging themselves into handling it?"

"Yes, exactly."

"Timothy has more to lose than most people but if you're very very sure of this person I think he would be delighted to have a plan for that."

"I don't necessarily have to name him but it's possible she'd guess if I bring it up at all."

"Be very very sure of her, then."

Nod.

"Anything else?"

"No, that's all, thank you."

"Of course."

He leaves.

Miranda picks her way very delicately through a conversation with Karen and keeps it very hypothetical and 'do you want to get married anyway eventually' and does not think she guesses. Which is good, because in the course of this conversation it comes up that Minor knows about Karen, which. Would be complicating.

Maybe she can come back to the Ways' with Minor after Boxing Day does that sound fun?

He'd like that!

Her dad's house isn't connected to Floo - nothing in his town is, actually - so they have to fly it under disillusionment.

It's a tiny Muggle town. It's cute.

"Mum grew up here," she says, when they land somewhere unobtrusive from which they can de-invisible and walk the rest of the way. Miranda owns actual Muggle clothes and has loaned Karen some; Minor's she transfigures and now he is wearing pants. (Someone has shoveled a path through the ice from here, isn't that nice.) "That's how they met, but it didn't work out."

"Because of the magic, or -"

"She was pretending to be a Muggle at home and kept doing it after they got married but she got really tired of it and knew it couldn't keep up forever once they had me, not if I wanted to be able to pass, so she divorced him and moved to London when I was a baby."

Nod. 

"But they get along all right, I can owl her letters she forwards by Muggle post and she brought me here to visit when I couldn't travel on my own."

"Did he shovel this path?"

"So I don't slip on ice, yeah."

"Awwww."

He has a cute white Muggle house with a snowed-over vegetable garden and blue and green trim and chickens in the backyard. It's subtly seen some magical tuneups, but nothing conspicuous.

"He's expecting us, right?"

"Yeah of course." She has a key. She lets herself in. "Dad!"

There he is, sitting by the fireplace; he gets up to sweep her into a hug. "Miranda! And you must be Karen and Minor -"

"Um, yes Mr Swan."

"It's nice to meet you."

"You too. I've heard a lot about you."

"Mostly good things, I hope."

"Yes, should I be concerned she's leaving things out?"

"I don't think so! There are people who get into lots of duels and lots of detentions and various Forbidden Forest near-death experiences but Miranda isn't really the type."

"There was the one duel."

"Heard about that one."

"After that we learned to just make Michael do it."

"That's his second-eldest brother," Miranda fills in, "the one who filled in for my pet firstie -"

Nod.

"Married with a kid now, which might deter him from getting into duels except for practice with Timothy."

"Him I remember by name," he says to Miranda before she explains.

"And his wife's a Muggle."

"I'm not clear on how magic folk meet Muggles if they aren't related to any."

"Michael was apparently visiting convents looking for girls to hook up with."

"Convents?"

"Yeah. It worked out, though, he and Rebecca adore each other."

"I think maybe she wasn't a full nun."

"There're, like, half-nuns?"

"There's being almost a nun, and then you take vows and you're an entire nun."

"I actually don't know if she was any amount of nun at all when they first met."

"Getting pregnant out of wedlock is the sort of thing that would make somebody's family suddenly attempt to nunnify her."

"I can't imagine what they were possibly thinking."

"He should've at least given her a potion - well, I don't know, maybe she's too Catholic to use contraception and not Catholic enough to shoo him altogether -"

"That seems like a really bad amount of Catholic to be!"

"I suppose you could ask her but it seems like a personal question."

"James did over the summer and Michael said he was being very rude and should drop it and Timothy backed him."

"I wonder if Timothy knows."

"Can't have known at the time, I think he'd have intervened. But maybe now, yeah."

"I'm imagining him bursting in on them and it just seems really awkward."

"I mean, if Timothy were aware Michael was going around having flings with Muggles without protection he would make him stop, and then he'd track down the girls, and Michael'd have found out about Catherine before she was already two months old. He probably wouldn't literally intervene."

"Less awkward."

"A bit."

"What's the girl's family think of all this?"

"They didn't want them getting married because Michael isn't Catholic. Some of her younger siblings snuck out to come to the wedding, though."

"Suppose that's all they know, 'isn't Catholic'..."

"The sister was talking about how she was marrying one of the Fair Folk, they knew something was up."

"If the Statute gets repealed we can tell them more."

"I really hope Timothy gets somewhere with that."

"Me too." 

"Would've been less of a shock."

"I can imagine, yeah."

"I can't really imagine at all."

"Anyway, Timothy's working on it full-time and he usually gets what he wants."

"I hope so, but 'usually' so far has been in a school setting - has he got much concrete done since graduating -"

"Not that I know of but I wouldn't necessarily, it's mostly all politicking -"

"I should owl him more often but probably a lot of it is secret."

"Secret enough he wouldn't write you about it if not so secret he wouldn't tell you in person. Well, you can ask him tomorrow."

"I probably will!"

And he has questions for Mr. Swan about the chickens and about how Muggles do cooking and laundry and so on.

Mr. Swan can answer these questions. The chickens are for eggs and live in that coop and he sells some of the extra eggs. He's not very good at cooking but he can do eggs and porridge and sandwiches and basic soup. Laundry is thus and so.

House-elves are more convenient but it's very interesting.

"You know not even all magic people have house elves."

"How do you do laundry at home -"

"Enchanted basket."

"Makes sense."

"You could visit me there too if you want - there's no particular reason you couldn't before, even, just it's not as nice as your family's place."

"I'd like to meet your mum as well, yeah."

"You've seen her, she meets me at King's Cross."

"Sure, but properly."

"Easter, if you like, we're booked for this holiday."

"Sounds good!"

And Miranda and her dad exchange presents but she's holding back the ones she got for Karen and Minor till they get to the Ways'.

And then up north they go!

"I think it's probably time we told my siblings," he says to his wife the day before they're scheduled to arrive. "So everyone's not telling Catherine she'll be a witch now she's old enough to maybe understand them..."

"Yes - those friends of Minor's who're coming over, should they know too -"

"I trust their discretion but up to you, really."

"As long as they won't go telling the world."

"Definitely not." Squeeze. "Should we send your family a Christmas card or anything -"

"My parents won't appreciate it - well, they'll at least pretend not to - might be nice to do it anyway."

He can get some nice stationary and non-magical ink and - "what do we want to tell them -"

"- we're well and Catherine's well and we hope they're all right too, my married name if they didn't remember you saying when you introduced yourself, how to write back in case they want to after all -"

"I'm, um, not sure how to write back if they want to. I'll ask Timothy that."

He does. Timothy has arrangements for Muggle post. They write Rebecca's family that she's well and Catherine is well and walking and talking and adored by all the servants and so on and so forth.

(The servants are great, Rebecca loves the house elves, they're such helpful little darlings.)

The family now has seven house-elves, presumably in anticipation of its scions all leaving to start families and not being especially guaranteed to have spouses who bring elves along with them.

Catherine's favorite is Banksy, who draws faces on her pancakes in raspberry syrup for her.

Catherine's thriving. And no longer interrupts their sleep constantly, it's great. He hasn't turned up reversible options for birth control that don't involve Rebecca sinning but he really hopes they get a couple years' break. 

Rebecca knows all the Church-approved and not-Church-approved-but-Rebecca-approved workarounds like "nurse a lot" and "the rhythm method" and "I guess technically you would be committing onanism, not me, right?" and "I'm going to confession tomorrow anyway" and is not pregnant yet!

It's great! He's not sure why one should even have a religion if they're going to rules-lawyer it mostly away but it makes her happy and keeps things interesting so that's all right. 

His siblings come home.

There are hugs.

There are! Miranda has left Cricket outside so he won't harass Timothy.

"You'd think I'd have earned some credit for introducing him to you," Timothy says when this is explained.

"Cricket's hatred is deep and irrational. If it helps, he also hates Madeline for her taste in earrings."

"I suppose my wounded pride will eventually be soothed. How've you been?"

"Pretty good. Whenever you have a minute I have a nefarious plot question."

"I'd be delighted." And a minute is found not that much later.

"Are you planning on getting married at some point - y'know, um, anyway?"

"Yes."

"D'you think you'd get on with Karen."

"Uh, is she looking for -"

"She's the same - thing - why are there not words - she wouldn't mind if you carried on with Fredrick or anything, either - but the problem is Minor knows about her -"

"That is a problem, yes - what does he know - the word is 'sodomite' -"

"I thought girls couldn't be sodomites? I've never heard anybody call a girl one - Uh, technically all he knows is she's in love with me."

"I don't know what girls are called. Uh, she could be both, in principle, that's a thing."

"Does Minor know that, though."

"Someone could endeavor to bring it to his attention. Michael might be maneuverable into that, he was covering for a couple girls at school -"

"You could probably maneuver him, then, sure. I asked Fredrick if it would in principle be okay to mention to a hypothetical girl whatever-girls-are-called and he said yeah if I was sure of her but I think I managed to ask her if it was okay to tell about her without her guessing who I wanted to tell, so if you don't find a way to line it up you can leave it be, but. Better than potioning it?"

"Yeah, the potions are all unnervingly priorities-distorting."

Nod.

"I will attempt maneuvering. - thank you -"

"You're welcome. If you wind up marrying her you have to say 'I should never have doubted it would have been all right to tell you everything, Miranda'."

"You've been doing the same thing for pretty much the same underlying reason - "

"Um?"

"At least I assume it's the same reason? I guess it's also possible you thought I was really invested in enforcing the purity of the Slytherin common room and didn't tell me for that reason but it seems likelier it was just - it can only get out once and that's everything lost if it does -"

"You're right, I should certainly have told you that time you read my correspondence and asked me about it, or the time you ran into me on Christmas Day wearing Muggle clothes -"

"You, uh, also didn't share it when it was in fact super highly relevant. I'm not saying you should have, I'm just saying the feeling can't be unfamiliar."

"With Minor? I told him why I wasn't sure, if it'd come up under the same circumstances with you I would've told you."

"He didn't mention. Why weren't you sure of him -"

"I said something like 'how could I have got the idea that you care who people's grandparents are' -"

"My father's grievance with his half-siblings isn't really about blood. Though I can imagine Minor not explaining it."

"He really didn't. But you've always been fine about your cousins, so."

"I care very much who inherits the Wizengamot seat but am better than Minor at having interpersonal relationships advance my goals."

Nod.

"Anyway. Thank you."

"You're welcome." Sigh. "Poor Karen."

"Yeah. 's not much fun."

"I don't mean in general so much as - I really upset her."

"Because she was hoping you'd be the same?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"Make her glad she told me."

He nods.

"That's all."

Off she goes.

And Michael doesn't want to make an announcement of it but he does say at dinner that he met Rebecca a week before he took her away with him.

"- um -"

"Didn't bother telling everybody because they wouldn't believe me anyway. And it felt - narratively wrong - to spend the week after adopting Catherine going around making sure people were informed I wasn't her father -"

"...well, that explains some things..." says Miranda.

"MY PAPA," hollers Catherine.

He scoops her up. "Yep."

"People'll just assume she's a Squib -?"

(Catherine pats her papa's cheek and now he has lemon sauce on it.)

"Yeah. But we don't want her expecting a letter, so we're going to explain as soon as she's old enough to understand -"

"Well, she might be a Muggleborn."

"Shouldn't count on it."

"It's vanishingly unlikely. I did check that the birth father wasn't a wizard - so I could duel him, mostly, but also so she'd know -"

"Duel him for what, not marrying Rebecca himself?"

"Rebecca didn't want to marry him, but for getting her pregnant in the first place, absolutely."

Nod.

"I can't decide if this makes you more or less irresponsible."

"I think I am clearly more impulsive and less irresponsible."

"Is that why you wouldn't say why -"

"Yep."

Rebecca kisses her husband and collects Catherine to napkin lemon sauce off her hand.

He Vanishes it off his face.

"Did you already know that," Miranda wonders vaguely at Timothy.

"No one told me."

"Not what I asked!"

"...the official story would have required conduct that would have been very out of character for both of them, so I concluded it was probably a lie, checked that no one involved was presently being unduly pressured somehow, and then decided they'd explain themselves when it suited them?"

"It sounded weird to us too and we hadn't even met Rebecca."

"I would personally be upset if people thought I was irresponsible enough to have created such a situation but -"

"It doesn't cost me anything to be thought irresponsible, I'm not angling to rule the world."

"I was a little worried you'd all feel like you'd been - pressured into loving Catherine more than you would've -" says Rebecca.

"She's still family."

Rebecca smiles.

"MY unca," Catherine says to Karen, pointing at Theodore.

Karen giggles.

"You've got a bunch of them. And we've all only got the one niece, at least until somebody who is definitely not going to be me settles down -"

"I don't actually remember you dating in school but maybe you just provoked less gossip than some people."

"It'd be hard to top him for gossip but no, I didn't - I sort of figured I was going to drop out, and also, people suck -"

"If you don't find anybody I might just assign you someone for nefarious reasons."

"That is practically guaranteed to be a disaster but it is conceivable you could thread a non-disaster needle somehow and I bet you know what a disaster'd look like so I bet you wouldn't do it unless you were very sure of your threading."